“Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation”, by Parker J. Palmer

Pg. 63

One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person’s pain without trying to “fix” it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person’s mystery and misery. Standing there, we feel useless and powerless, which is exactly how a depressed person feels — and our unconscious need as Job’s comforters is to reassure ourselves that we are not like the sad soul before us.

“Lifting the White Veil: An Exploration of White American Culture in a Multiracial Context”, by Jeff Hitchcock

Pg. 45

It is a common finding that white Americans as a group score significantly higher on IQ tests than do black Americans. Does this prove that white Americans are more intelligent?…

Consider a simple experiment. Take a group of 200 infants. During their childhood, call half of them low-IQ, tell them no one from their group has even been President of the United States, chronically underfund their schools, and to keep it interesting, give them a daily sprinkling of lead paint chips in their diet. When they reach age 18, give both groups the same IQ test under identical conditions. Would you expect the high-IQ group to actually score higher? Probably so. Would it prove the high-IQ group has an innate genetic superiority? Probably not.

“Bridging the Class Divide: And Other Lessons for Grassroots Organizing”, by Linda Stout

Pg. 87

Oppression is part of the fabric of everything we do and experience — what we’re taught in school; what we see in the media and on billboards; the images of beauty we absorb from our culture. In school we learn about white men who supposedly discovered everything and invented everything. In a majority of churches, women in the Bible are presented in negative ways; we’re taught that men are supposed to have power over women. Men are always shown as the powerful ones. Heterosexual couples are always shown as the basis for a family; theirs is the only acceptable kind of love. Poor people are shown as stupid and lazy, often as Southern, so many people actually associate Southern accents with being dumb. All these images reflect institutionalized oppression…

the great weight of the system operates as if the oppressive images were true instead of lies and distortions. For example, if you are poor and you want to buy a used car, you soon find out you’ll have to pay more interest, make higher payments, than for a new car. So you end up having to buy a new car… Institutionalized oppression is when a prejudice is supported by all the systems of society with all the power to back up that prejudice, so that it becomes the canon — the accepted way.

“The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege”, by Robert Jensen, part 2

Pg. 89-90

The United States is a white country. By that I don’t just mean that the majority of its citizens are white, though they are (again, for now but not forever). What makes the United States white is not the fact that most Americans are white but the assumption — especially by people with power — that American equals white…

At a 2004 news conference outside the White House, President George W. Bush explained that he believed democracy would come to Iraq over time:

There’s a lot of people in the world who don’t believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren’t necessarily — are a different color than white can self-govern.

It appears the president intended the phrase “people whose skin color may not be the same as ours” to mean people who are not from the United States. That skin color he refers to that is “ours,” he makes it clear, is white. Those people not from the United States are “a different color than white.” So, white is the skin color of the United States. That means that those whose skin is not white but are citizens of the United States are… ? What are they? Are they members in good standing in the nation, even if “their skin color may not be the same as ours”?

“The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege”, by Robert Jensen

Page 6:

What does white supremacy mean in day-to-day life? In the United States, a black applicant with no criminal record is less likely to receive a callback from a potential employer than a white applicant with a felony conviction. In other words, being black is more of a liability in finding a job than being a convicted criminal. Studies show that from the mid-1990s through the beginning of the new century, such discrimination in low-wage jobs has remained constant. These statistics led the researcher to conclude that even if employers are not consciously discriminating against black applicants, ‘there are a lot of unconscious processes that come into play that bias or distort employers’ perceptions of the quality or suitability of minority applicants.’

“Listening to the Light”, by Jim Pym

Page 22:

I have discovered that we can all contact the Spirit within us. We do not need the external aid of special ministers or special rituals. Through this Spirit, ordinary people have the potential to become extraordinary. Through It, I have come to realize that ordinary people are extraordinary. Because, in the words of Tennyson, this Spirit is ‘Closer… than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.’ It is there whether we acknowledge it or not, but when we do recognize it, and in the silence provide a space for it to act within our consciousness, It can transform our lives , and the lives of all around us.

“God, Emperor of Dune”, by Frank Herbert

From page 79:

Odd as it may seem, great struggles such as the one you can see emerging from my journals are not always visible to the participants. Much depends on what people dream in the secrecy of their hearts. I have always been as concerned with the shaping of dreams as well as with the shaping of actions. Between the lines of my journals is the struggle with humankind’s view of itself — a sweaty contest on a field where motives from our darkest past can well up out of an unconscious reservoir and become events with which we not only must live but contend. It is the hydra-headed monster which always attacks from your blind side. I pray, therefore, that when you have traversed my portion of the Golden Path you no longer will be innocent children dancing to music you cannot hear.